Humanizing Your Brand
One of the biggest hurdles every business owner will come to face is how to make their brand stand out from the competition while staying consistent with messaging and standards. An easy way to overcome this obstacle is to humanize your brand. It's simple. People respond best to people. Your consumers want a personality, and they want to relate to your brand and message. They don't want a robotic, faceless message and would prefer to connect with you over shared ideas. Here are five tips:
Designate a Personality and Style
Every brand should have some sense of brand personality and style that is easily recognizable by its consumers. If multiple consumers were asked to describe your brand, they should all have similar answers. Here are a few examples of big brands and their personalities that we all know:
- Disney - the most magical place on earth, family-friendly, childhood memories, a positive persona that works for all ages
- Tiffany & Co. - timeless, sophisticated, elegant, charming, blue box, true love
- Apple - innovative, creative, tech, way of life
- McDonald's - quick, family-friendly, convenient, variety
Whether you use these products or not, they all will have similar descriptions from multiple consumers. Developing a personality and style isn't always easy, but it's necessary. What words best describe your brand? Would different people have the same answer? If you get stuck, a brand workshop is a great way to make your brand memorable.
Share Valuable Content
Don't share content for the sake of it being content. Many brands get caught up in ways to increase website traffic and blast content; however, a lot of this content tends not to be valuable to consumers. Your consumers can see right through this. A great way to build trust is to listen to what your consumers want and provide it. Pay attention to your contact messages, social comments, trending topics, etc., and use that to dictate what types of content you should be sharing on your blogs, emails, and social content.
Share your Brand Story
Take your consumers through your entire journey and be transparent. Share the highs and the lows. Telling the brand story will make your brand more relatable, and your consumers will appreciate your product or service more by understanding the story behind it.
Use Social Media to Build Relationships
It's one thing to post content that your followers want to see, but engagement is a whole different level of social media marketing. Building relationships with your followers is a lot more than liking or saying thank you to a comment. Converse with your followers. Ask them questions. Answer their questions. Engage from both your business page and personal page letting them know who you are. Encourage your employees to comment on your company's posts and let other followers be aware that they are employees commenting. Most followers generally expect blanket responses from a company page, but showing some personality on your social accounts will go a long way to humanize your brand.
Show the "Behind the Scenes" of your Company
"Behind the Scenes" content is one of the most natural ways to showcase your company. It's content you don't really have to plan and can show at any time. Show the highs, the stucks, the silly stuff, etc. Ask the CEOs Q&As in a natural format. Interview employees on their roles and tasks they are working on. Social media is the best place to show these pieces, and having "behind the scenes" as part of your overall content strategy will help your consumers connect with you and your company's brand.
The most important thing to remember is to make your brand relatable. Remember, people respond best to people, and bringing some personality to your brand will make it relatable. If you get stuck with your branding, Serendipit is here to help. We specialize in all things branding, including workshops, messaging, stories, design, and so much more.
